


Then and Now

by Smokemycancer



Series: These Days [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-05 13:20:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1819900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokemycancer/pseuds/Smokemycancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Yevgeny Milkovich. My parents and I have spent the last seventeen years moving around for my stepfather's sake. Because he continually worsens, my dad moved us back to Chicago. Where we're happy. Everything is fine. We're happy. Things couldn't be better. We never keep secrets. Until now.</p><p>Everything is fine.</p><p>Series AU/Future FIC. Multi pairings. Original characters and my take on some fresh canon ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of the "These Days" series. The main focus is going to be the Milkovich and Gallagher families, mingling in tidbits of the Ball family (which will be part two). Look out for POV change throughout the following chapters; Mickey, Yevgeny, Fiona, maybe Ian.
> 
> The starter for this series is a one shot, "Familiar" which. . .if you want. . .you can read. It might enlighten certain aspects from now forward. 
> 
> Italics are flashbacks/memories. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_“Pop! Calm down!”_

_At this point, all of our unpacked boxes are in disarray amidst the livingroom floor. My old man is pulling his hair, spitting out a slew of words that would offend the devil himself._

_“Pop! We’ll find him!”_

_“He’s off his medicine, Ven! Who the hell knows where he went!”_

_“How long?”_

_“Two weeks.”_

_“He’s been unmedicated for two weeks?”_

The car keys turn over in my hand and my memories flood me as I sit in my father’s recliner playing with them, overlooking the figure curled up under sheets on the sofa. He’s been like this for a few hours. In my lap, my sister, five years old now, grips my t-shirt between her small fingers and snores quietly. I exhale slow, rest my chin upon her messy red curls, stare at the lump. Behind us, in the kitchen, I can hear my father pulling something from the refrigerator.

_“I didn’t know.”_

_“What’s wrong with you? How do you not know! He’s your responsibility!”_

_“I can’t watch him twenty-four seven! I had to handle the move!”_

_He grabs an empty glass. Pulls a bottle of whisky from one loaded cabinet. Pouring himself a helping, my father takes a swill._

_“Yeah that’s great. Get hammered!”_

Miranda stirs at the sounds of my father clinging around. Groggily, she opens her doe brown eyes and is quick to look over her shoulder. She is still holding onto my shirt as she stares at Ian. When she turns her attention back to me, she is crying. She’s afraid. Like I used to be. Like I still am sometimes.

_Glaring at me, he chugs the entire glass. I know it burns because his left eyes waters. He slams it down._

_“It’s your fault that he’s like this!”_

_“Watch your god damned mouth!”_

_“If you hadn’t put him in that nut house!”_

_“He almost died, Yevgeny!”_

_“Because you don’t keep up with his Lithium!”_

_“No! Because he’s sick! Son, he’s sick, and we can’t take care of him alone.”_

Kissing her forehead, I smooth back her hair and whisper to her that everything is fine. My father quiets. The kitchen light flips off. The back stairs creek. Upstairs, his bedroom door slams. Miranda shakes her head, her eyes tearing up again, and soaks the front of my shirt. She has never been able to deal with the downs. She doesn’t understand just like I used to not understand. And she can’t handle my father’s frustration. He’s prone to close in on himself and shut us out when Ian spirals down. Every time. Often times, he worries me more than Ian. My father is a strong man who takes on more than his weight in troubles, more than not inviting the trouble with welcoming arms before trying to nurse the problem into something beautiful, something at least normal. I’ll never understand him, but I admire his tenacity.

_“Yes we can! You just need to find him. We need to find him! We can call aunt Fiona! Uncle Lip!”_

_“Fiona can’t fly out here right now and I’m not involving your uncle. It’s just us three. And I’m too busy. I can’t. . .I. . .”_

_“You mean you won’t! You’re going to commit him again, aren’t you?”_

_“I have to get him well. Bare with me. Okay? Just try and understand. I know it’s hard and you’re just a kid, but please, try.”_

Once Miranda is finally asleep, I hug her against me and carry her up stairs. Her face, squished against my collar bones until I lay her down and tuck her in. I flip on her night light before shutting her door behind me and leaning on the heavy oak. Staring up at the ceiling, I swallow the ball in my throat and close my eyes; breathe in, breathe out. After I get myself under control, I push off of Miranda’s door and tiptoe over to the master bedroom. Placing my ear on the door, I wait to see if maybe my father went to sleep. But I can hear him moving around. Softly, I knock on his door. He opens it within seconds, stares back at me, remorseful.

People tell me I am the spitting image of my father, but with lighter hair and my mother’s Russian nose. I tower over him, but just barely.

“Can we talk?” I ask him.

He nods as he turns around, moves to sit on the edge of his bed. I sit beside of him. We don't look at one another or speak. Just watch the fish tank beneath the far window. Without warning, he puts his hand the nape of my neck and side hugs me. I study him but he isn’t looking at me. His eyes are lost, he’s somewhere else.

“What happened?” I ask him. I feel like I’m intruding. My father is very private man, especially when it comes to him and Ian.

His silence chills my chest. Finally he lets go of me and rubs his face. “I don’t know,” he starts. His voice is tired. His eyes are bruising from lack of rest, from too much worry. “I was looking at his pills,” he says, motioning at the mess he’s made of their bathroom. “I think they switched him to something new. He didn’t tell me. But. . .” he trails off, hands praying over his mouth and nose. “But he’s been acting fine until I got home tonight. He was. . .I don’t know.”

“He told me he doesn’t like being on an SSRI,” I tell my father. Chewing my lip, I confess what I should have sooner. But I’d hoped it meant nothing. “So, maybe he stopped taking his Symbyax.”

My father looks at me, his eyes piercing through me. “Jesus,” he snaps, shakes his head. “He doesn’t like taking anything. Never fucking has,” he complains, rubbing his mouth and I can see his efforts to calm himself. “I forced a benzo down him before you got home,” he tells me. “Before he scared Miranda any worse.” Deep regret sets in on his face. He’s thirty-seven next month and people mistake him for being my older brother. “Is she okay?” he asks me. I can tell he wishes he had handled the situation better.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “She’s worried you’re going to make him leave,” I say.

He snorts. Miranda is biologically Ian’s niece; his younger sister’s daughter. Debbie passed away after a car accident and left her infant in my dads’ care. My aunt Mandy says Miranda inherited her mother’s dramatic flare. Probably my father is thinking the same.

“Where were you?” he asks me, changing the subject and I’m grateful. I just want this night to die out, for tomorrow to be a little easier.

Scratching my cheek, I bring my legs up and cross them. I turn to face him and I’m suddenly reminded of being younger. All the times I came to my father, sitting just like this, talking for hours into the night. Usually Ian was close by, chiming in. I’m saddened and nostalgically peaceful all at once. I ponder what I should tell him. We’ve never kept secrets. “I bought a car,” I start.

He looks at me strangely. “Bought?” he asks me, an accusing tone peeking in. He knows I quit my job three months before we moved back to Chicago. I haven’t even looked for work here. They stopped my allowance years ago.

“Borrowed long term,” I say and can’t look him in the eye.

My father, his history with crime is not a secret in this household. He would be a hypocrite to judge, so he drops it, mostly. “You scratch the vin?” he asks, brow up and face disapproving.

Nodding, I tell him of the outskirts, the race I stumbled into.

He smiles for the first time all week. “Leave it to you,” he goes. “You win any money?”

I rub the back of my neck and shrug. “Got interrupted,” I say jokingly but instantly want to eat my words.

He licks his lips and looks away.

The room grows quiet. Each silent moment putting more distance between us. I feel as though the bed is literally stretching, pulling us in opposite directions. Inhaling deeply, I blow at my bangs. Pick at the scab on my knee. Unsure, wishing I could take this back to hugs and understanding glances, any place but where I’ve offended one of the only people I give a damn about. “There was ballerina there,” I say, and by now the inside of my lip is raw.

Finally he looks back at me, yawns, and studies my expression. “She plie and dance the side-lines?” he snarks. “Wear a little tutu?”

Chuckling, I say, “I kind of wish. I was supposed to go against her.”

“Hilarious,” he says, rolls his eyes, and gently shoves my forehead. It’s quiet again for a moment. He yawns again and stand up, arches his back and the crack is loud enough to make me wince. “Can you do me a favor?” he asks, looking down at me. I nod, he says, “You remember where your aunt lives? She doesn’t know we’re back yet. I need her to come see Ian. I’d go myself,” he continues, “but if I don’t make that interview, we’re fucked.”

I tell him I’ll go. “But can’t we just call her?” I ask.

Shaking his head he says, “Just go over. See your cousins and shit. Surprise her. Take Miranda.”


	2. Chapter 2

“How much farther?” Miranda wines by my heels. The city is working on the train we needed and I didn’t bring money for a cab. I should have taken the Acura. My sister, she’s a wuss as bad as a drama queen.

“We’re almost there,” I tell her. “Wanna piggyback?” I ask, stopping to wink down at her. And of course she does. She claps her small hands, body buzzing with excitement and relief as I squat down and let her climb up. She leans down, whispers in my ear that she doesn’t like it around here. “It’s pretty scary, huh?” I growl jokingly. “The ghetto monster’s probably waiting for us behind one of these barrels,” I say, laughing maniacally, and she swats me for frightening her worse. I find her fear quite silly.

My whole life, I grew up in slums. Until Ian inherited Miranda, my fathers were fine with scraping by.

My crazy Russian grandmother, she stole me from my parents when I was three, and if not for my mother sacrificing her freedom, I would still be with them. My father brought me back and honestly, I can barely remember Russia. Two years doesn’t make that huge of an impression in the grand scheme of things. Especially not when I’ve spent several years in Rosa Parks, Detroit. Golden years of my youth, I spent in a rusty trailer, helping my father buildup stolen cars just before he went straight for minimum wage. Too many close calls with the police. Too much fear of being locked away from me and Ian. But it was okay. My father has always put his money into Ian’s medication and treatment, and I never knew I wanted for much until kids teased me for being poor. Only now my father works within the correctional facilities and we aren’t bad off by a long shot. Haven’t been since Miranda. All she’s ever know is cushion. My father, he’s really turned things around.

“How much farther?” Miranda repeats as we walk by a vomiting drunk.

“We’re here,” I tell her, remorseful as I stare up at Fiona’s house from the fence. Ian says she stayed for Monica and Frank. Had a change of heart about her parents, especially Monica, after Ian’s own diagnosis.  Is still caring for my grandmother. Fiona’s husband abandoned her and the three children.

“Is she home?” Miranda asks, looking around for a vehicle.

I nod. Miranda has only met Fiona a few times, but talks to her over the phone often. My father, he used to blow thousands to fly Fiona out to Detroit, to California, to Jersey. Wherever Ian wanted to move. Every time Ian had a bad down. I guess my father, he’s sick of plane tickets, which is why we left Texas. It’s a shame because I was fond of the warm weather and southern belles. Maybe slightly too fond of the latter, according to Ian.

When we knock on the door, Miranda is on her feet and bouncing. It opens and my aunt Fiona is standing there, eyes full of tears. She’d saw us through the peep hole.

“Oh my god!” Fiona coos, bending down and squeezing the life from my sister. She stops her assault on Miranda and stands up, forcing me into a hug. Pulls back, holds my shoulders, and studies me. “Jesus,” she says, “you’re a grown ass man!”

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” I say and she kisses my cheek, pulls us inside.

All of my cousins are around Miranda’s age, slightly older, except Dylan, who’s two years younger than me. He’s barely a freshman but has the pompous ego of his father, thinks he can boss me. I dread seeing him again. It’s always a dick measuring contest with him. Thankfully he isn’t home as Fiona sits us at her table, stuffs Miranda’s face with two day old brownies. When the other kids come down stairs, my sister is whisked off and I take my chance really talking to Fiona.

She staring into her milk, pieces of brownie stuck to the corner of her mouth, and grinning. “When did you guys get here?” she asks, taking a drink.

My eyes crinkle as I take in her messy state. She works third shift and mornings are not her friend. I know she would rather be sleeping. Has probably been awake for going on twenty hours. The sounds of children in the room behind us moves quickly upstairs and I sit aside my brownie. “About a week ago,” I say. “Pop wanted to settle in before letting everyone know. And dad, well, he’s been busy decorating the entire house to perfection,” as I finish talking, thoughts of Ian covered in paint and rearranging furniture ten times over make me grin.

“Sounds like Ian,” Fiona snorts. “Has he started buying area rugs and bamboo blinds yet?”

“Yeah, and dumbass lights to hang around our hearth,” I roll my eyes.

“I bet its pretty,” she says, wistful, looking up like she must be picturing our first-time-for-real house.

We’ve always rented.

Propping my chin up in my hand, I look past her at their sink. “He lost his ring re-doing the kitchen,” I start, moving into why I actually came here. Losing a ring seems frivolous. But not with Ian. Not when he has apparently been forsaking his medication yet again. Week after week of not being balanced and slowly everything builds in on him. He’s prone to depression more so than the mania. Diagnosed Bipolar 2 disorder. At the point of no return, any small event sets him off and there he’ll go, depressed and suicidal again. It’s a terrifying waiting game.

“He find it yet?” Fiona asks, carefree.

“No. Pop got him a new one,” I say, “but things aren’t so great right now.”

Instantly, Fiona sighs and looks at me, sorry. Pitying. I don’t have to explain. She’s been here, lived this lifestyle. Only Frank never tried with Monica, so our crazy is a little different. Not to mention, while Monica may have experienced an episode or two of hospitalized depression and a lot of minor downs, she was mostly hypermanic. Bipolar 1. With my step-dad it’s all downhill. I’ve only seen him manic once. Sometimes I don’t know which is worse.

“Shit,” she breathes. “He all right?”

“If you consider threatening to jump out of a window and telling pop he wants a divorce all right.”

“Shit,” Fiona says again, hand gripping her hair.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The kids pile into my house in a tiny stampede, Miranda front and center, leading the way, and my father dodges them all just barely as he walks over to greet Fiona. The floor is wet, freshly mopped, and two of the kids go sailing into the staircase.

“Aye!” My father bellows, turning around, scowling, “Be careful! You’re going fucking break something!” Fiona snorts and watches his never changing parenting skills. He catches his calm and walks over to us, barefoot and sporting cleaning gloves. I know he’s been cleaning the mess made from his spat with Ian last night. Fiona probably assumes he’s being homely. “He talk to you?” he asks her, nodding at me but still staring at her sleepy face.

She hums and looks past him, no doubt trying to spot her brother. “Where is he?” she asks us both, looking between.

My father takes off his gloves and shuts the front door. He licks his lips and fidgets. “He’s upstairs in bed,” he tells her.

“Alone?” She yelps, eyes wide and glaring at my father.

He looks offended. The two of them have always argued over what is best for Ian, never seeing eye to eye but always coming together in the end. “He’s asleep, Fiona,” my father drones, walking away and putting the gloves in the mop bucket. The water splashes up, speckles the floor.

“He could be pretending,” she accuses, still angry as she marches heavy footed to the staircase. She’ll find her way around; she always does.

“He’s not!” my father calls up after her, rolling his eyes, defensive. “I saw to it!”

“Xanax?” I ask, sitting myself on the arm of our sectional.

“Some kind of benzo,” he says and waves his hand around before crossing his arms. He’s wearing Ian’s workout shirt that’s too small for him. Ian is lean as of late but my father is built like a heavyweight cage fighter.

“Pop,” I start in, scrunching my face to let him see my disapproval, I whisper as if Fiona is listening, “you can’t keep mixing his medicine.”

Rolling his eyes at me and grabbing up the mop bucket definitely, my father stomps into the kitchen, nearly tripping on the wet floor. “I wouldn’t be,” he tells me and I hear him pouring the water down our sink. “But he tossed the shit all over the place yesterday. Half of it went down the toilet. I can’t tell one salvaged pill from the next,” he’s in the walkway now, talking with his hands. “He’s sedated, and that’s all I care about.” His tone ends this conversation. I can see he’s not going to take anyone’s sass or criticism. Frankly, I don’t blame him.

“I thought you had an interview?” I ask him, scratching my head, changing the subject.

“It was short,” he says. “I start Tuesday.”

Heading upstairs, we both hear Fiona gently speaking to Ian through the crack in my parents’ door. My father puts his hand on my chest and stops me from entering. We stand by, observing. Fiona is sitting down beside Ian, who is covered up and in a ball. She has draped her upper body around his shoulders, face against his head. As always when he gets like this, Ian is unresponsive. Partly also because my father knocked him out. By now, Fiona’s two boys and daughter have joined my father and I with Miranda. My sister looks longingly up at my father, who without pause picks her up and brushes her hair from her flushed face. The kids have apparently been running around the attic, which stands open, ladder down, behind us.

“Didn’t I say off limits?” My father says to her more than asks.

Fiona gives up her cause and spins around on the bed, her eyes meeting with mine before settling in on my father, tiny Gallagher in his arms. Miranda’s dress is dusty.

“Sorry, popa,” Miranda says and hugs his neck.

He motions for me to shut off the attic. The flooring is weak from a leaky roof. Walking back toward him, Fiona has shut the bedroom door and takes Miranda from his hold, smiling at him warmly. It’s a love hate relationship that my aunt and father share. She admires my father if only briefly and on occasion. When she isn’t busy judging and losing contact for long periods of time. Until and emergency.

My family is fucked up. A ball comes to my throat when the thought passes through me. According to Ian, what my father won’t tell me is what a fucked up family is truly like. Ian says it’s not his business to talk about. My father and I, we don’t keep secrets, but there are some things he refuses to approach.

I watch Fiona hug my old man awkwardly, Miranda sandwiched between them.

He’s outside smoking when night falls. Fiona cleans off the dinner table and I help her wash dishes, pack up the left over, my eyes never leaving my father’s back as I peer through the window. Rinsing my hands off and drying them on my shirt, I turn around and lean on the cabinet, cross my arms. She looks at me curiously.

“He’s planning on asking you to take Miranda for a while,” I break it to her. “But I mean,” I trail, rubbing the bridge of my nose. This is such touch ground. “Is Monica even stable right now? Her kidneys are failing.”

Fiona cuts the water and picks her teeth with her tongue, watches the water go down our drain. “Not really. Her doctor doesn’t think she’s going to be around after August.”

“Four kids too much?” I assume.

“Yeah,” she breathes. “Honestly. Yeah.”

“That’s fine,” I reassure her. “I think he’s just scared.”

FIona shakes her head, staring now at her feet sadly. I can’t take my eyes off of her deep frown. The opening back door sneak by me. “The hospital,” she starts, “it’s always an option.”

“No,” my father’s angry voice booms as he locks the door behind him. “I promised Ian no more hospitals,” he says.

“Well if he’s too much for you to handle along with Miranda, Mickey, it’s a viable option,” Fiona says to him, pleading.

He’s not having it. But I watch his eyes flash at mine, furious that I’ve butted in on his plan to ask Fiona himself. “No,” he repeats. “He’s staying here.” He huffs and walks in a small circle before flinging himself onto a kitchen chair, shaking his leg. His eyes dart from Fiona and me to the staircase. “It never lasts long,” he says. “Longest episode was a month. And that was because of Debbie,” he blurts in a burst. He’s getting upset. I hate to watch this. “I’ll get his medicine in him. Get him regulated! He’ll be fine. I can take care of him. I can handle this. I always fucking handle it. No more hospitals.”

“The hospital helped him last time,” Fiona says, kneeling down by my father’s knee. She touches his hand and he pulls away.

“He was god damned zombie! They had him on so much shit he couldn’t even recognize me!” My father yells, voice cracking, but this time when she takes his hand, he stays put. He wipes his eye harshly with the heel of his hand.

Fiona takes a pause. She sits fully in the floor and turns around, resting her head against his knee. She pats his foot and exhales loudly. Shuts her eyes and she says, “Okay. I can take her. But only until next week.”

“That’s all I need,” my father says. His voice is quiet now. The room is quiet now.

Giving them much needed privacy, I slip away upstairs, unnoticed.

 


End file.
